


Pain

by Professor_Fluffy



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 01:43:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/742714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Professor_Fluffy/pseuds/Professor_Fluffy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quick drabble about the Chronic Pain Tony Must feel from having a giant chunk of complex metal and shrapnel embedded in his chest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pain

**Author's Note:**

> Possibly not the most stable or healthy premise for a relationship. But these things pop into my head in the middle of the night.

Sometimes, late at night, there is an all encompassing need to just give up. A fluttering thing, beating against his chest, leaving him damp with fear sweat. Sometimes the pain of the arc reactor pulsing in his chest, dull and aching, or bright and sharp, changing with fluctuations in the local weather patterns, leaving him aching and worn down, older than his years, and screaming for any sort of relief or release from his pain. He finds it at the bottom of a bottle, or hidden in spiraling equations, and sometimes, if he’s lucky, in a few hours of sleep...

It’s never good sleep, it’s restless and sloppy. He never feels fully recovered in the morning. If he’s lucky he gets enough good REM to ease the pain when he wakes up. 

They see it sometimes, little fleeting glimpses, a grimace, or a twinge, a faltering step. He’s learned to refuse their help because he’s knows on some basic level that accepting help can lead to being pitied, and he’s too stubborn to allow anyone to think less of him. They say there’s no difference, but there always is, and in the animal kingdom, a wounded animal is prey. Tony Stark is no one’s prey.

The alcohol relaxes him, but he can’t let himself lean too heavily on an addictive substance, so he becomes a workaholic, locking himself in the lab for hours at a time. If his brain is running, scrambling for solutions, he’s not focusing on the pain, or how hard it is to breathe. So he keeps a constant stream of distraction flowing through his mind, a problem that’s intentionally solved, a never-ending feedback loop that he indulges in like a drug. He begins to crave the exhilaration of flying in the armor, the rush of adrenaline and the endorphin spike that combine to make him feel whole again, like he’s no longer some wounded creature, begging to be put down, caught in the throes of chronic pain. There are nights he wakes up, gasping for air, and for a few pain filled seconds, he misses the finality of his palladium poisoning. When the moment passes, he wretches into the sink, sick with self loathing, and curses himself for a selfish, unlovable fuckup.

Escape, everything is about escape. Escape into his mind, escape into mindlessness, escape into sleep, escape into thrill, escape into sex, anything that keeps his mind occupied, and far from the sharp coil of pain. 

He thinks dying for a cause, letting nature take its course, would be the optimal endgame, but he’s frightened -- frightened of his own thoughts. It's better when he’s not left to his own devices. The way he sees it, if he doesn't cut the wire with his own two hands, then maybe they won’t hate him for it, even if it takes an act of god, or deliberate willful negligence... 

And maybe that’s how they end up the way they do, because now there’s another presence, someone who watches him, far too knowing, from the shadows, daring him to stomp across the wire, every single time he falters. And he does, knowing they’re locked in some fucked up emotionally compromising footrace to see who can live the longest, who can be the most stubborn. 

People look at Steve, and they see the holy grail, someone who has everything, but Tony sees someone who’s just as broken and fucked up as he is. Someone who fought past his physical pain and still lost everything. He sees it in Steve’s drawings, in the reckless stubborn set of his jaw, the way he’s always strategizing, his restlessness, the hours he spends in the gym trying to escape his ghosts. They both have the word survivor tattooed on their foreheads in indelible ink, and sometimes it's easy to loath each other for it.

Eventually Tony begins to think that if they can be two opposite sides of fucked up together, without pity, without self indulgence, and without compromise, that they can both add one more box to the list of shit worth staying alive another day for.


End file.
